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User blog:Zenzamir/Caesar for Rookies, Part I
Introduction This is a guide on how to play Ceasar in the early game, up through Greco Persian Clash. It is written for a low silver server, in this case iOS S13 Priest. Many of the players mentioned in this article are members of Justice League, the biggest S13 Caesar alliance. This strategy is a fast play approach for S13, where there are a small number of players, the silver is very low, and the value to advancing quickly is very high. Please note in advance that the strategies presented here DO NOT apply to servers with high silver, a large number of players, or servers where many players have become powerful in the r60 range and above. In fact, if you were to attempt a super fast strategy on such a server, you would be hammered endlessly in PvP. Many thanks to Gmoney15 and the many players who have tutored me in the Deadly Art of Caesar. Hail Caesar! The kingdom of Caesar can be intimidating to rookies. Charlemagne offers the most straightforward approach--just unlock siege heroes, equip them with powerful weapons, and blow things up. King Arthur gets magical heroes, and although casters can fail at spells, the approach is again straightforward--unlock Sir Bedivere, Sir Kay, Lady of the Lake and Haley, equip them with powerful staves and enchanted items, and blow things up. Caesar is different because it relies primarily on gambit attacks. You will find that these attacks can be devastating in PvP, but they require greater attention to your formation, heroes and strategy. That said, Caesar can be extremely effective on low amounts of silver. The approaches presented here will focus your taxes on only two items. You can use Horse and Blade, or Double Horse. I myself used Double Horse, but I am switching to Horse and Blade after being convinced of its effectiveness 1. Almost all of the most powerful players in the S13 Caesar royalty list use Horse and Blade. The two current exceptions are Wulf and Aust, who actually use Single Horse with massive support. Gambit Theory If you have read the Gambit attack section, then you should understand a few things. Gambit attacks depend on your mount, which is typically a horse. Gambit attacks only fire when your Morale has reached 100. Morale is charged in several ways: *Incoming direct siege attacks will raise Morale by 34. *Incoming gambit and magical attacks will not affect Morale. *Outgoing direct siege attacks will raise Morale by 34. *A flag bearer will raise the Morale of all your heroes by 34. *A priest can bless a random hero directly to 100. **Bless can fail. **A bless on a hero already prepared for gambit has no additional effect. *An enemy Huscarl who uses their gambit Battle Cry will cut your heroes' Morale by 30. *An enemy flag bearer will reduce your Morale by 5. The single key to Caesar is this: YOU MUST OVERCHARGE MORALE. Morale doesn't stop at 100. It can keep climbing and climbing. Morale is a percentage on your gambit attack, which means if it hits 200, your gambit attack is at 200% or 2x damage. Impressive, right? If you position your heroes correctly, and sequence your support well, you can strike for enormous amounts of damage every turn. This is very important in PvP, because the firepower from your horse is typically one color level (see Equipment) above your adversary's cloaks, and cloaks can't keep up anyway. The Expendables So, if you're reading this guide, welcome to Bari, the first Caesar city in r30. You're probably level 20 now, and you've already recruited a collection of beginning heroes--Robin Hood, Maid Marian, Saladin, maybe Baldwin of Jerusalem. Don't get attached to these heroes. Some people waste way too much time and resources on these heroes, only to throw it away later. This approach will move you to the valuable heroes quickly. The same goes for gear. People collect too much gear, and spend lots of time and silver leveling it up, only to find that it's useless at the next city. This article relies on the concept of Leapfrogging, also called Island Hopping. As you advance, your two primary heroes get the best gear. Your support heroes get the hand-me-down gear, and you downgrade all the gear you can't use into silver. At level 20, you should have the following heroes and gear: *Saladin, short sword +20, scale mail +20, white cloak *Maid Marian or Robin Hood (not both), shire horse +20, white cloak *Your original hero: Rickon the same as Saladin, the rest as Maid Marian and Robin Hood If you do not have Baldwin, don't bother getting his tokens. You won't be recruiting him. Also, please don't waste resources on leveling weapons for Maid Marian, Robin Hood or your starting gambit hero. I know people will tell you that you need them, but really, you don't. Most people who say that are slow players, and you want to be fast to get into the good action. Your first stop is going to be Odo de St Amand in the Holy Crusade Legion. Keep attacking him until you have two suits of Dragon Bone Plate. Level these up to +20, and then break down one of the white armor those heroes were using. DO NOT get more than two suits of Dragon Bone Plate, and make sure to keep at least one extra suit of white armor. For a discussion of an alternate approach to armor, please reference the Notes section2 below. Now continue to advance steadily in campaign towards Alfred the Great in the Viking Invasion Legion, leveling your heroes and gear as you go. Alfred the Great is the first hero that might be considered a keeper. I used him for a long time, others did not. He and Attilla the Hun are pretty much interchangable in my opinion, but you will find that to be a hotly contested statement. Good thing it's my article. ;-) If you choose to recruit Alfred the Great, you will be employing a Double Horse strategy. When he has enough levels, give him the horse and equipment from Robin Hood or Maid Marian, whoever you were using. Discard them immediately, and do not level them any more. Cnut the Great is a throwaway hero, don't even bother training him. The reward for completing the Viking Invasion campaign is a Nomad Bow. The bow is an awesome Rare blue weapon, and you should immediately begin investing in it for Saladin. This will be your primary siege weapon for a long time. At this point you should also Enlighten Saladin to perhaps +30 on his Siege (or Normal) stat; ignore the others for now. It's more than likely that you're around Level 25 now, so I recommend getting your Academy to 25 so you can use four heroes in a formation. Once Alfred the Great is defeated, proceed to Heavenly Scourge legion. Keep leveling your heroes and gear until you can beat Mulan. Get all of her tokens and recruit her. Mulan is the gold standard of early gambit heroes. Her strike pattern is excellent, and she goes critical frequently. Once you have Mulan, STOP the Heavenly Scourge campaign. You heard me correctly. There is something more important to do now. Head directly to the Treacherous Revenge campaign. Fight through, leveling Mulan as you go. Do not recruit Spartacus, just defeat him. When you reach Boudica, hold on to your seat, everything is about to change. Boudica is the first priest hero who can cast bless, raising morale to 100. She is an absolute must-have hero for Caesar, and will be in your formation well into level 71 and beyond. Once you have Boudica, your gambit heroes will become tremendously more effective, even though she does sometimes fail to bless. It's okay to wait for a while until Boudica can be used to fight Morgan and the final TRL bosses. Now that you have reached TRL, you must fight it continuously until you receive two full suits of Gold Armor. This is a Rare blue armor and has powerful protection value. Get this armor and begin to level it. Take your Dragon Bone Plate x2 and transfer that to your support heroes, and equip your Gold Armor x2 on Mulan and either Alfred or Saladin, whichever is out front. Now you may resume Heavenly Scourge legion. Your lineup should be Saladin, Mulan, Boudica one of the following: *Alfred if you are using Double Horse *Rickon, Meera, Fernando, Grismund, Robin Hood, Maid Marian or whoever is highest level I cannot stress this enough: all other heroes get tossed. I wouldn't bother recruiting Morgan la Fey for healing, either. That fourth hero is completely expendable (unless it's Alfred), and as soon as you finish Heavenly Scourge Legion, you will be throwing them out. You may now resume HSL, with the following understanding--you will NOT be farming for a Durandal. If you get stuck in the Hundred Years War campaign, you can always go back for it. If you don't get stuck, you will receive a Joyeuse, which is also a purple sword and really the only weapon you need. So if you spend time and effort getting Durandal and never get stuck in HYWL, all that time was wasted on an irrelevant weapon. If you're using Alfred and Double Horse, then you don't even need Joyeuse However, you do need something else. A very, very powerful something else. About this time you should be leveling towards 30. People will tell you to do armies and legions at the lowest possible level, in order to maximize Battle Points. If you want to spend the next Ice Age crawling through the game slowly, you'll have to ask them to write an article for you. ;-) Level 30 is an absolutely critical point for the Ceasar kingdom. Learn how to develop awesome firepower and become a Ceasar PvP warrior in my next article, the Zen Moment Guide: Caesar for Rookies, Part II. Notes 1 I'd really recommend Horse and Blade from the start. Double Horse is more challenging and a little more exciting, but in the future it becomes a less useful strategy. With Horse and Blade, you can immediately transfer your single Nomad Bow from Saladin to the much more powerful Jochi, which we will see in Caesar for Rookies, Part III. This will save you a lot of time. 2 Taliseth, the queen of S13 Caesar, proposes a different approach to armor. She advises skipping the green Dragon Bone Plate and using white armor until you get four sets of Rare blue armor. 4W to 4B is powerful, but it takes time and banners. I skipped the entire Transylvania campaign, because in my opinion it is not useful to recruit Vlad the Impaler. It is necessary to complete Treacherous Revenge Legion to get Boudica, so you might as well acquire your Rare blue Golden Armor there. My leapfrogging method to armor was 4W, 2W2G, 2G2B from TRL, and eventually 2B3P from Golden Horde Legion. Taliseth and many others went 4W, 4B, (2-3)B(3-2)P. I prefer my method, because it saves the trouble of leveling up four blue armors when you will replace at least one or two with Hero's Guard in GHL. The Dragon Bone Plate is available much earlier in HCL, and shouldn't take many banners to obtain. Category:Blog posts